the joy of it

I love forsythia. Each year it comes first, startling the sky into a brighter blue, seeming to shout with the excitement of the burgeoning year.
Each spring seems more of a miracle than the last, and forsythia embodies that feeling of wonder and gratitude.
It must have been one of the first plants I noticed as a small child, and I have a clear memory of my Dad telling me its name, and the two of us companionably admiring its golden splendour.
I think of him whenever I see it.

It has been a great day, bright and warm after a frosty start. We worked on the outside of the main hedge all day, planting new shrubs and strimming, mowing, mulching.
The idea is that this new band of mixed evergreens will eventually replace the ruined leylandii, though we'll have to live with the holes in it and the whistling wind, for a good while yet.